


Steven Grant Rogers is the type of person who genuinely likes kale

by StrawberryLane



Series: Culinary Adventures [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bad Cooking, Bucky moves in with Steve, Comfort Food, Cooking, Domestic Fluff, Experimentation with food, Food, Orange the cat does too, POV Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-30
Updated: 2016-10-30
Packaged: 2018-08-27 22:12:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8419216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrawberryLane/pseuds/StrawberryLane
Summary: He tries to make his own mayonnaise, but can only watch helplessly as the whole thing curdles, despite the fact that he employed Steve as primary whisking person.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Two stories in one day after months of inactivity? Go me! 
> 
> This is just a small addition to the Culinary Adventures 'verse I wrote back in March, because I felt it was needed :).

Steven Grant Rogers is the type of person who genuinely likes kale. He doesn’t just eat it because every healthy food blog ever and every single person who takes their health somewhat seriously tells him that kale is the food of the gods when it comes to keeping in shape, no, Steven Grant Rogers genuinely likes to eat kale.

Bucky hates kale. 

Well, hate is a strong word. He really, really dislikes kale. Any other green leafy thing full of iron and stuff like that is fine, but kale?

Nope.

Bucky first finds this out months after Steve first showed up on his doorstep and stole the affections of Orange the cat. The only reason he didn’t find out that very night was because they both had shit to sort out and it took them a while to actually get back into the friendship, so to speak. 

But after eight months of finding Steve on his doorstep almost daily, Bucky relented and moved the few belongings he owned and Orange halfway across the world and back to American soil. To a small apartment in Brooklyn, already inhabited by one Steve Rogers.

Bucky even bought a special basket for Orange for the trip. She hated it, much like Bucky hates the vile thing known as kale.

Steve’s kitchen, which Bucky promptly declares ownership of, is full of fancy modern gadgets: a machine that kneads the dough for you, a coffee machine, a toaster, a slow cooker. Once Bucky’s checked with Steve, made sure the man has no problem handing over the running of his kitchen to Bucky, he banishes the slow cooker to a dark cupboard for the time being. 

He has come a long way, but he’s not there yet. He has all the time in the world and he enjoys cooking his own food, dammit. 

There’s a lot of takeout menus in Steve’s kitchen. They go in a drawer, only to be seen if Bucky is unable to make dinner that night. This almost never happens, because Bucky takes dinnertime seriously.

Another thing there’s a lot of in Steve’s kitchen when Bucky arrives, carrying his meager belongings in his backpack and a steady hold on Orange’s basket, is vegetables. Tomatoes, cucumber, zucchini, spinach, eggplant, arugula, green beans, snap peas, regular peas, onions, garlic, chives, asparagus, leek, potatoes, beetroots, radishes, carrots and artichokes.  
Bucky just kind of stares at the sheer amount of stuff from the doorway, whilst Steve mumbles something about going a bit overboard at the farmer’s market. 

Bucky feels his lips curl upwards at that. This is all for him. Steve, who has confessed repeatedly he usually just lives on takeout and those precooked meals you can buy in the supermarkets, despite having all the gadgets in the world to cook a proper homemade meal, went to a market to buy fresh vegetables for Bucky.

They’re not quite at the hugging stage yet, but if they were, Steve would have problems breathing by now. Instead, Bucky turns around, allowing Steve to see the smile on his face and Steve goes red, but smiles back a small smile of his own and that’s that. 

They might not be back to what they were before just yet, but they’re well on their way of getting there. One meal at a time.

Now that he’s more secure in his cooking, and secure in the knowledge that Steve would sooner cut off his own foot than not be the biggest cheerleader for Bucky there ever was, Bucky branches out a little. Tries to make stuff without the aid of a recipe book.

But his copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking is still sitting on the shelf next to the stove, close to hand. Likewise, "Home Economics in the twentieth-century America" has a permanent place on his bedside table. It’s tattered and worn, pages falling out because how much he’s used it in only the last couple of months alone and he knows every word in there with his eyes closed, but he can’t throw it away.

The first thing he makes is ramen noodles, but with a twist. He’s in the grocery store, stocking up on the boring stuff, ramen noodles, dried pasta, brown rice, that horrible brand of mayonnaise Steve likes, when he, to his horror, sees a mountain of small cheese squares, all speckled with mold. Blue mold. He sneaks a glance down into his shopping cart, to make sure none of the things he’s put there already are also full of mold. They’re not, and he breathes a sigh of relief. He looks around, only to see a young woman put not one, not two, but three plastic wrapped moldy cheeses in her basket, walking away like nothing’s wrong. He stares after her. Maybe she’s blind? 

An elderly man walks up to the cheese and picks out a piece. He doesn’t seem to notice the mold either. Bucky steels himself, locates an employee, and asks him if the cheese is supposed to be moldy. 

It is. It’s also quite good, according to the boy. So Bucky buys a piece just to try it out. It turns out to be pretty good. Not his favorite, that’s feta cheese, but still up there in the top ten. So for lunch, he experiments, making ramen noodles with mushroom flavour, sprinkling blue cheese on top. It’s surprisingly delicious.

Next up is yesterday's slightly stale baguette, warm and buttered, sprinkled with raw garlic and flakes of sea salt. After that there’s more baguette, this time buttered and dipped in balsamic vinegar. It’s not a hit, even though Steve eats three pieces, claiming to love it. Steve would probably claim to love eating dirty leaves off the ground if it kept Bucky happy though. Bucky banishes the bottle of balsamic vinegar to the back of the shelf.

They watch Notting Hill one evening and the next morning Bucky tries mayonnaise with granola on top for breakfast. Mayonnaise and granola with pieces of dried apricot in it does not go together. Neither does strawberries dipped in the stuff because they’d run out of cream, but that’s another story. 

Next he makes chicken, fried in butter and wrapped in ham. He sprinkles everything in a huge amount of cheese and puts it on the oven for a while. Steve eats over half of the dish on his own. 

For lunch the next day Bucky makes a huge bowl of spinach, avocado, strawberry salad, with cranberry dressing and garlic bread. The salad tastes all right, he decides, but cranberries are definitely not his favorite.

One day they eat nothing but artichokes dipped in salty butter. Another, Bucky throws together something that looks like it should be disgusting, but is actually kind of all right. Not anything he’d eat every day, but if he’s hungry it would sure go down. He cooks rice and lentils, minces a whole bunch of garlic, cooking that with pieces of aubergine and way too much curry. The last second decision to add parsley wasn’t his best idea, though. He’d forgotten he didn’t like parsley. 

The next morning he makes porridge for breakfast and puts curry on top instead of cinnamon. It wasn’t intentional, and he swears Orange is laughing at him from where she’s laying on the sofa. He makes sure to be fully awake before reaching for any condiments from then on.

He finds he doesn’t like salmon, no matter how it’s prepared. Steve takes him out for sushi once, and that ends badly for everyone. Except for Orange, who likes salmon and gets so excited she runs headfirst into Steve’s legs when he comes through the door, carrying a doggy bag of the food Bucky just couldn’t eat. She eats it all once Steve’s put it in her special bowl. Raw salmon, rice and seaweed. Bucky feels betrayed.

His next experiment is tuna with melted cheese on top, served with a side of macaroni and spicy ketchup. Sounds slightly insane, but is actually kind of good. If he’s hungry.  
Shepard’s pie with a blob of strong mustard on top is a hit. Steve goes back for not only seconds, but also thirds and fourths.

Next he makes cheesecake with cinnamon flavor. It goes all right, especially since he wasn’t using a recipe.

He makes croissants, piles them with ham and cheese and serves for breakfast with hot chocolate. He makes pain au chocolate and decides that it’s paradise in a pastry right there.

He tries to make his own mayonnaise, but can only watch helplessly as the whole thing curdles, despite the fact that he employed Steve as primary whisking person. 

The hollandaise sauce turns out fine, though.

He tries to make zucchini meatballs, which aren’t actually meatballs at all, because it’s just zucchini, an egg and a cup of breadcrumbs, with minced garlic and spices. He adds a bit of flour to keep the balls together. Steve sings their praises, but Bucky isn’t fooled. The flour didn’t really mix with the zucchini, so there’s bits of flour here and there. He won’t be making those again any time soon. 

He will definitely make the tomato sauce again though. That stuff was heaven.

He does another experiment, buys ready made meatballs and dips them in chocolate. Steve eats them without blinking an eye.

Bucky makes strawberry cupcakes with pieces of jelly mixed in and chocolate mint frosting on top. Steve eats that too. 

He doesn’t eat boiled potatoes that’s been dipped in milk chocolate and sprinkled with mint leaves, though. Good to know the man still has some sense left. Bucky wouldn’t have eaten that either.

French fries dipped in ice cream with chocolate sauce turns out to actually be pretty good. The saltiness of the fries get on well with the sweetness of the ice cream.

He makes sweet dumplings, with apples inside, and empties a can of coke over the dish just before he’s about to put it in the oven. They do actually turn out okay.

He bakes cinnamon rolls and monkey bread, so sticky sweet he can’t touch it with his metal hand because he’d never get it out again, and a loaf of bread with apples in it. He’s a little disappointed, because he grated so many apples, but when he actually tasted the bread he barley felt any taste of them. 

All in all, most of his experiments turn out fine, except for the potatoes and chocolate combo, which is okay because that was just done to mess with Steve. 

He likes messing with Steve. It’s what the man deserves for stealing the affections of Orange the cat.


End file.
